On the back of Modi government’s ‘Make in India’ initiative, the domestic mobile handsets and components manufacturing industry has helped save the country a whopping Rs 3 lakh crore of possible outflow in the last four years, by replacing import of completely-built units (CBUs) with domestically manufactured and assembled handsets, said the India Cellular & Electronics Association (ICEA). In a report, the industry body said the mobile phone and components manufacturing industry is expected to be worth Rs 1.65 lakh crore with about 290 million units by March 2019, while import is also expected to go down to around 5-7%.
In the financial year 2014-15, of the total domestic requirement of mobile handsets, nearly 78% was met through imports. The net foreign exchange savings are already estimated to be over Rs 60,000 crore, the report said. As per the report, more than 120 new manufacturing units were set up in the past four years, providing employment to over 4.5 lakh people. In the last financial year 2017-18 itself, over 225 million mobile phones were manufactured and assembled in India, which is about 80% of the total market demand, the report showed.
For the first two quarters of the current financial year, the industry is expected to be Rs 75,000 crore in value terms and volume turnover of about 130 million handsets. ICEA chairman and national president Pankaj Mohindroo said in the report that India is now moving towards almost zero imports for mobile handsets. Last year, India became the second largest smartphone market after China by overtaking the USA.